eLeaP Learning Management Systemô

Reevaluate Your Learning Management System

Once you start using your Learning Management System (LMS) for some time, you start to learn more about your business needs. You also tend to walk away with an appreciation for the ways the LMS meets or exceeds these needs. Additionally, however, you uncover the areas where your Learning Management System just isn’t cutting the mustard. If you’re about to embark on a reevaluation of your LMS consider these steps to use as your guide through the process.

Send out a Request for Proposals (RFPs) for Learning Management Systems

Now that you have a handle on what you need your Learning Management System to do for you, and what you don’t need it to for your business, make a list of the features you require. Send out the request for a proposal to the various businesses that offer LMS technology. Narrow your options down to those companies that you have preliminarily researched so that you know they have a system that is better than the one you are currently using. Also, you want to make sure the new system possesses all or the majority of the features you need.

Attend Vendor Demonstrations of LMS's

As the proposals start rolling in, review each one carefully. Decide on which systems offer you what you are looking for in a Learning Management System for the long-term. Schedule a time for each of these vendors to come in to your office or conduct an online demonstration on how their system can work for your business. Getting the most out of these presentations requires you to do some upfront work first. Prepare real-life business scenarios to present to the vendor. He or she then has the opportunity to show you how the LMS fills the need you have with each scenario.

Four case scenarios to consider:

End-user experience

Report impact

Flow of data

Visual representation of the data

Customization of the Learning Management System

Running through the different case scenarios illustrates how well the Learning Management System fits your business needs as the system exists now “out of the box.” Pinpoint the areas where the system is currently falling short. Talk with the vendor’s representative to determine the customization options of the LMS to cover these gaps in your needs.

Now that you have been using your Learning Management System for some time, you know the good points of your current Learning Management Systems and you know the not so good points of the system. Now, you also know how to go about reevaluating your system to determine which direction you need to go with your current Learning Management System or what to look for in a new system.